Missing
and Murdered Women and Girls – Part Four
I suppose I could go on hour after
hour, beating the dead horse but it would just be rehashing what has already
been said. Clearly this, as much as other things within the Indigenous
community, falls on the shoulders of the community itself. It has become
totally clear that however well intentioned the government and its bureaucrats
are, they are singing the same old song. Maybe they don’t know any better any
more. And in the Indigenous community, the chiefs and counsels are sitting on
both sides of the fence. And that leaves the victims of these horrific attacks
being tossed back and forth like a political football with no resolution at
all.
These victims must mobilize the
tools that are at hand to tell their stories in spite of governments and
bureaucrats. They must call on the literary and film resources, the museums and
public places to bring this to fruition. Indeed, The CBC, being a Crown
Corporation and award winning documentary producer could well be the vehicle to
bring these stories into being. If the government wants to participate, they
may do so under the direction of the victims by providing the funding, the
grants, and the public facilities for the display of these stories. Then if
they further wish, they could listen and learn.
You see, over the years of European
contact, Indigenous people have been so denigrated and dismissed as inferior
people by the “Empire Builders” and so enamored with their gifts and gadgets that
they slowly accepted their subordinate place in society. And the “Empire
Builders”, seeing their success at subordinating the Indigenous communities
have just continued on until they themselves believe this to be right. And so the Prime Minister strikes a committee
to “fix” the problem. By doing so, he has inadvertently created the most
colossal blunder of his career.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I believe
Trudeau is sincere in his concern over Indigenous issues. He has his hand and
his heart out to them, no question. But striking a committee of white Empire
Builders to structure a path to heal the victims and their families and to zero
in on closing the files successfully is the wrong way to go about things. Firstly, empires are no longer in fashion.
Neither are the means and the methods associated with them.
Listen, here’s what has to happen:
From the government side, the “whatever you want to call the department” needs
to be scrapped and dismantled, its finances handed over to the auditor general
for arms length disbursement and replaced with a committee of Indigenous
nations to run by way of consensus. The government should then mandate the CBC
to document all the stories to be told in documentary fashion and the
storytellers be brought in to a studio to tell their stories, preferably in
their own native language with visual translation on a screen. This should then
be placed in the Museum of Human Rights for all to see.
I can’t see for the life of me how the cost of
this sort of program would exceed the cost of the committee and all its studies
and consultations, especially if the chiefs and counsels were to give their
time to this without compensation. It would likely be the first step to a true
healing of the communities and rebuilding of self esteem of the nations.
If you wait until next week I’ll
tell you who should act on behalf of the government and who should act on
behalf of Indigenous peoples and the ramifications of the proposal.
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